


More Time

by yespolkadot_kitty



Category: The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, PWP, What am I doing, just soft smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:53:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29442918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yespolkadot_kitty/pseuds/yespolkadot_kitty
Summary: Indulgent smut that I'm writing after the news that Pedro Pascal has been cast as Joel in the HBO series of the video game, TLOU.
Relationships: Joel (The Last of Us)/Reader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> NB: I have NOT played the game. I have watched some cut scenes and trailers.

“She’s asleep,” you say, making your way to the threadbare couch in the abandoned cabin.

_ Threadbare _ would be a compliment for this thing. Its better days were perhaps way back in 1950.

Still, Joel doesn’t complain as he looks up at you from it, one hand rubbing the back of his neck thoughtfully. “Good. She needs it.”

You sink down on the couch next to him. You’d love to make tea, or coffee, but you only have three teaspoons of the crappy supermarket coffee left, and you need it for the morning.

“Find anything on your patrol?” You ask instead, picking at a loose thread on your jeans, jonesing for caffeine.

“Nah. We’re safe enough for now.”

He leans back against the sad, tired couch, looking just as threadbare himself. There’s grey coming through on his beard. You don’t know exactly how old he is, but he seems to have aged since you joined him and Ellie on their journey.

You'd had food in your possession - they had needed food.

And you’d held Joel at gunpoint, prepared to shoot him in the face - but then Ellie had barrelled in like a tornado and you’d seen her skinny arms and big eyes and-

You were toast.

And over the last two months, the three of you had formed a truce, and, for lack of a better plan, you were going to go where they were going, and see what happened.

There was nothing else left for you.

You stood a better chance of staying alive with them than without.

And with them, you didn’t have to think so much.

About your parents, their faces ravaged. Limbs torn.

The car, upside down.

The blood. 

So much blood. The smell of it stays with you.

“Hey.” Joel snapped his fingers by your face. “Come on, now.”

You’d frozen up once, almost got chomped, and he’d saved your ass. You were working hard not to freeze up again. It was tough - every day was tough.

You sit there in companionable silence for a while. Outside, beyond the filthy cabin window, the moon rises.

“Can we sit on the porch?” you ask.

“Sure - quietly.”

You know he wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t safe.

There’s an old swing on the porch. You remember, vaguely, sitting on one, drinking lemonade, as a little girl. No constant danger. Something playing on the TV inside. Cookies baking.

Now it all seems like a fever dream, something that happened in another reality.

You follow Joel out on the porch.

He looks beautiful in the moonlight, in a rugged, wrung-out way. The lines of his face speak of a life lived to the best of his ability, of love found and lost, of brute force used, of determination to  _ survive. _

His long legs eat up the distance to the swing, jeans hugging his ass as he sits.

You take the opposite end.

The moonlight dances in his autumn-brown hair, picking out the grey and the copper; kisses the line of his nose and the crease in his lower lip.

Sometimes, if it was  _ really _ safe, he’d play his guitar, but tonight was not one of those nights.

_ More’s the pity. _ He has a compelling voice, low, husky-soft, it makes you yearn.

_ He _ makes you yearn.

But you need to survive, not moon over a man hard-wired to move ever forward. He doesn’t need you, not really, that much is abundantly clear.

But still. You’ve been dancing around each other for the last two weeks. 

_ Just kiss already, _ Ellie had muttered over dinner the night before last. You’d laughed it off, but you hadn’t missed the heat snapping, briefly, in Joel’s dark eyes.

Sometimes on nights like these, you talk, about  _ before. _

Sometimes you don’t, and Joel reads a tattered old paperback.

“You ever seen  _ Grease? _ ” Joel asks, at length.

“No?”

A muscle in his jaw moves. “If I was Danny Zuko, I’d fake a yawn right now, stretch my arm, an’ then put it around you.”

You snort.

“Why? Do I look cold?”

He swears under his breath. “Damn woman.”

You want to give in. Oh fuck, do you.

But you have to survive first, and if you sleep with him, you might not want to do anything else ever again.

“This is the safest place we’ve been for a while,” he says, cautiously, not looking at you. “No way to tell when we’ll be somewhere with doors an’ windows again.”

“Joel Miller,” you breathe.

He glances at you, and the tiny glimpse of hope in his eyes tells you what you need to know.

“Are you trying to  _ seduce _ me?”

He looks away. “Forget it.”

“No, no - I’m sorry.” You slide up next to him on the porch swing; it creaks, but holds you both. You hesitate, then place a hand, palm flat, on his thigh. He’s warm, solid, the ancient denim soft under your skin. “Please, continue.”

He huffs out a half-laugh. “So you can shoot me down again?” His accent is thicker when he’s embarrassed. “Nah, thanks.”

You clench your hand on his leg. “Joel, I just didn’t expect... I mean, I’ve thought about it… About you…. So much.”

He side-eyes you. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Very much.”

The cicadas sing as a cloud drifts across the moon, casting a half-shadow across Joel’s face, bisecting his gruffly handsome countenance, separating the two sides of him: the morally ambiguous survivor, and the loving in-all-but-name father.

You like both sides.

“Show me,” he half-growls.

_ Now or never, _ you think.

“Think this swing’ll take it if I sit on your lap?”

His eyes darken, the shadow over the moon moves, illuminates the furrow between his brows, the jut of his chin. “Only one way t’ find out.”

You settle one hand on his shoulder. Kneel up. Swing your other leg over, bracketing his hips.

The corner of his mouth tilts up in a crooked half-smile, and then  _ finally, _ he settles his hands on your hips, slides them to the waist of your jeans. The tips of his fingers tease the skin between the jeans and your sweater.

“Got rough hands, honey.”

“Good.”

He lets out a sigh as you lean down, your hair brushing his forehead, and pass your lips over his, once, twice, and then he wraps a hand around the back of your neck and kisses you  _ properly, _ and oh  _ fuck, _ it’s everything.

You mutter his name, needy, like a prayer, and part your lips for him. He tastes like the wilderness - free and addictive, and you’ll take whatever he’ll give you, and if that’s a quick fuck on a porch swing by moonlight, so be it.

You slide your hands into the curls of short hair at his nape. He gets Ellie to cut it; you saw them do it once. A lot of swearing. Ellie’d threatened to slice off his ears, she said she’d call the cut “the van Gogh.”

Times like that, you’re reminded she’s only a teenager and your heart aches for her.

Joel groans against your lips and you settle more firmly into his lap; feel the line of him against the seam of your own jeans.

“Been a fuckin’ long while for me, girl,” he bites off, bucking up into you. “Ain’t usually….  _ Fuck… _ got time for this kinda thing.”

“Been a while for me, too.”

His hand clenches on your neck. “Cryin’ shame we don’t got more time together.”

You love him like this, raw, needy, when the Texas comes out in his voice.

“Well then,” you whisper, nipping at his full lower lip, “We’ll have to make the most of tonight.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smutty smut smut. And FEELINGS.

You dry hump each other for what seems like the most perfect of hours, but is only minutes, the only sound your gasps and groans and whispers, amid the chirp of the cicadas in the humid evening.

“Joel,” you say, and he slides a hand up your abdomen and cups your breast, his touch warm through your bobbled sweater. You loved this garment once, before you’d had to wash it against rocks in streams too many times, before the fabric lost its lustre without regular washing machines and soft detergent.

But it’s warm and familiar and besides, where are you gonna buy any more clothes like this?

You lean into his touch, and he squeezes lightly.

“More.”

He chuckles softly, but it’s not the sound of him making fun; rather, he can’t believe that you want him, an exhausted and jaded survivor who only knows how to live and die by the speed of his draw, who has done nothing but  _ live _ , one day to the next.

Rather than answer you, he bends his head to settle his mouth over your nipple through the worn fabric, and you keen and arch your back.

“ _ Joel. _ ”

“Just like that, honey.”

His breath whispers over your wet flesh through the damp fabric. His beard scrapes - deliciously.

You press against him and he complies, opening his mouth over you again, and when he finally, finally drags up the hem of your sweater and pushes up your bra and  _ tastes _ you without barriers, you think you might come undone from that alone.

Your hands scrabble in his hair for purchase, your fingers clench in the thick, soft locks. 

He makes a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan, and you press your lower body into his, and his hands clench against your skin.

He breaks contact with your breast to slide your sweater  _ off _ and it pools on the dark wood of the porch like a white flag; the surrender of the last shred of the walls you tried to erect against him. You lost your own battle and you go so willingly.

The light breeze puckers your nipples and gives you tiny goosebumps, but of the very good kind. Joel’s oft-washed flannel shirt is soft on your naked torso, the material faded and comforting, but you want  _ more. _

You burrow your hands between his shirt and t-shirt, and push the flannel off. It joins your sweater under the swing, and Joel captures your mouth with his, and he tastes  _ so good, _ and sweet, and you want this little patch of starlight to last forever.

It won’t, you know it won’t, but for now you press that aside.

For now, you have this warm, willing, brave man in your arms, under you, and for now, Ellie sleeps safely in the cabin, and it’s enough.

You’ll make it enough.

You grind into him and he answers with a moan of your name before he’s tugging at the buttons on his jeans. You lift yourself up to give him access and so you can watch. He’s commando, he said once that it was less stuff to wash and cart around, and you gaze on, enchanted, as he pulls his erection out, hard and swollen, the tip wet, and you curl your hand around him.

His eyes flutter shut and he leans back, and you kiss the pulse that thuds under his ear.

“Joel,” you whisper.

“Fuck, yes, honey,” he rasps, hoarsely.

You need him to be  _ wetter _ so you unsnap your own jeans and catch his hand, putting his fingers where you want them. He obliges willingly, huffing out a breath as his thumb slides over your clit.

He eases two fingers inside and the stretch is divine; you’re very wet and you both know it.

“Touch yourself now,” you murmur, and he gets his fingers wetter, then fists his dick, and you swipe your own fingers in your slick and your hand joins his.

Joel mutters a low  _ fuck, _ and then his free hand fills you, fingers working with his thumb on your swollen clit, and you touch each other like that, until you wonder if you might go mad from the pleasure you hover on the precipice of.

For his part, Joel gazes at you from heavy-lidded eyes, panting. When your hands stills on his cock, it jerks impatiently in your grasp.

“Need you,” he grates out.

You press your hips into his hand, riding his fingers, then stay his hand. “Want to come when you’re inside me.”

He swallows hard; a muscle in his cheek ticks, and then he’s lifting you up onto his lap so he can push your jeans down to your knees. When he’s done, you straddle him again. His cock glistens wet against the darkness of his t-shirt. You want to taste it, but there’ll be time for that later. 

“C’mere, honey,” he half-whispers, half-rasps, in that voice of honey on grits. His voice gets you every time.

You brace your hands on his shoulders and he grasps the base of his cock, and you mount him oh, so slowly.

When he bottoms out, you clench your muscles.

Joel tugs your head down to his and rests your forehead together. “Shit. This won’t take long.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.” He settles one hand on your hip and the other at the apex of your body, strumming that sweet spot. “Ride, honey.”

And you do, as the moonlight peeks in and out of the cloud cover, as the cicadas sing to the rhythm of the rise and fall of your body.

You press kisses to Joel’s neck, his beard tickling your lips, and clench your fingers on his broad shoulders, shoulders that have carried too many burdens, and that will carry yours even if you don’t ask them to.

His thrusts up into you start to falter as he strums  _ just _ that spot. You fall apart, chanting his name like a prayer, and he follows you shortly, sinking his teeth gently into the curve where your neck and shoulder meet, a half-growl escaping his throat.

You wrap your arms around him, and he strokes his gun-callused, scarred palms up and down your back, and his embrace is the safest place you’ve been for a long, long time.

*******

Much later, you make it to the other bed in the cabin. It’s threadbare, but that doesn’t matter. You wrap around each other again. Joel kisses you soundly and then shoulders his rifle for one last patrol before he sleeps. When he returns, you tell him you counted the minutes he was away, and he presses a kiss to your hairline.

“Can I sleep inside you?” He asks, and it’s maybe the first time you’ve seen him show  _ true _ vulnerability.

“Yeah. I want you to.”

When he slides in, it’s like coming home, and you cuddle in as close as possible, and for the first time in months, you don’t dream. You just sleep, and so does he.

  
  
  



End file.
